Starting with internet, internet has grown a lot from the time of its evolution, much has been said and done about the internet, it is a very difficult topic to discuss on, after the fact that all the materials audio and visual are freely available over the internet. Information like sex, violence, crime, abuse, cruelty, violence, and other anti-social elements which are available just with a click of mouse which offend against the standards of morality and decency. All these information available are quite frequent, updated at times and growing in number which is again a cause of concern with the birth of new age surfing known as ‘blogging’ and what a way to promote it by giving internet connection for less than 200 rupees a month which even a common man can afford it. Downloading and uploading are now as common as ABC. People can get and give information over then net just from the comfort of their own house, no doubt it is good but the negative points are more than the positive ones, you have people sharing explicit materials with the use of scanners and web-cams and internet is the medium which provides them to go ahead with it.
In India if we can have a censor board for the movies then why not for the internet, we have cyber laws but I do not know how well they operate. Of course one cannot censor the whole website but at least give warnings to the ISP’s and build a law which everyone should follow. ISP can do a lot like signing from the users on notices made by the censor board for the internet. Of course this will be hardly supported by the users in India but it will surely make a difference. ISP’s can provide net security software to the users as a kit along with the internet package which the user chooses, also regular checks on the users can also be done, as these are minor things but they do make a major difference.
Coming back to the topic, internet content should not be censored if censoring a website can deliver 100% results. A website that is stated offensive or illegal today can also contain harmless content tomorrow but is likely to remain blocked in future, it will be of no use, the whole market will be affected, companies can go behind in promoting their products over the internet, censoring the content will do no good as people can have other means like sending stuff through the e-mails, chat messengers, P2P software, etc, tunneling can be easily done by an amateur user by just knowing the basics of the internet. Internet is unique because it is open; yes that is the keyword open to everybody, censoring the free flowing information like censoring over the phone or media will again grow threat to the principles like free speech and even democracy.
I know that for parents it is like a threat to provide their kids with the internet but if they are not informed or educated about the ill effects of the internet then minors will go ahead and surf porn over the internet. It is they who play the major roles in acting as a inspiration towards gaining good knowledge over the internet. Instead of helping a family of four, censoring will destroy the growing market of the internet. In short the outside world will be largely affected than the inside world. Again if you look closely then a genuine website will never go ahead and show anti social elements over its sites, remember a website which sold mms VCDS over its site which was later on taken out from the list, or a site which gave explicit contents which was again taken out from its pages. Now these were decent websites doing indecent stuffs which was not done intentionally. Look at the response Tehelka.com received, now this website never showed anti-social elements over the internet but only showed the habits and usual practices followed by the famous people or a common man which proved a threat to the nation.
Look at the Indian government itself which went ahead to stop the Google earth which also shows the military bases of the Indian army but what has happened to it, if I have not mistaken one cannot just go ahead and censor a particular information as it will affect the whole web site or the software designed by the website. Again it largely depends on the individual, I would sum it up and say that internet content should not be banned but there are other means that can be easily followed to protect yourself that again depends on you. If you search anything absurd or explicit content on google then obviously they will do their job and provide it to you, but if you search about the ways to prevent you from getting disturbed by the contents over the internet then again it will go ahead and provide you same information and also help you in protecting yourself from ill effects of internet.
Comments are welcome.